Patients' & Consumers' Use of Evidence

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Book Description

If, as one hears in health policy circles, every system is designed perfectly to achieve the results it gets, you could be forgiven for believing that the American health care system was designed without patients in mind. The health policy literature is filled with references to providers, but other than occasional use of the rather unfortunate phrase “skin in the game,” patients are all too often left out of the discourse regarding this $3 billion enterprise that purports to have meeting patients’ needs as its purpose. The physician’s lament that the patient is “noncompliant” is slowly being replaced with recognition that the patient is coproducer of the outcome for which the physician is now being held accountable. Enter patient-centered care, with the attendant need for a better understanding of patient goals, better methods for engaging patients in their care, and better measures of outcomes that have meaning for patients. This issue of Health Affairs examines patients’ and consumers’ use of evidence.